Customers demand more of the products and services they use than ever before. They insist that the companies they deal with on a regular basis provide them greater and greater levels of information and access. These companies are configuring and operating more and more complex systems that are capable of delivering highly integrated services to those customers. Some companies deploy and operate larger call centers with more agents in an effort to deliver highly integrated services to their customers.
For example, a customer requiring access to insurance information can call into a call-center and through a conversation with an agent service that insurance account. Changes are made to the account during the interaction between the agent and the customer. However, it may become necessary for the customer to be placed on hold. Typically these hold periods provide a less than ideal user experience to the customer. One response to this is to place more agents in a call center which can reduce the amount of time the customer waits for an agent to process them.